Special Interests' 'Raid'

September 26, 1988|The Morning Call

To the Editor:

I am writing in reference to an article in your newspaper recently which carried the headline "State Lottery facing crisis as programs drain reserves." My purpose in writing to you is to suggest you overlooked an important point or two.

No state lottery in the country, of which there are now 27, has come close to generating the cumulative sales and net revenues that our lottery has. Even today, while New York generates more net lottery revenues, it does not dedicate these sums exclusively to older persons as we do in Pennsylvania. Indeed, no state does this with its lottery nor does any state provide the depth and range of special services that Pennsylvania does for older people.

But, as your article portrays, the Lottery Fund is not a bottomless pit. In recognizing this situation, Gov. Casey and his administration have done much over the past 18 months to achieve greater cost efficiencies in lottery- funded programs.

The PACE Program is a case in point. This program will, in fact, achieve the "dubious distinction" of being the largest consumer of lottery revenues this fiscal year. This figure, however, will be well under the amount projected, just as it was this past fiscal year.

Greater savings can be realized through the increased use of lower-cost generic drugs without sacrificing quality of care for our PACE card-holders. Unfortunately, self-serving special interest concerns, as evidenced by the Pennsylvania Pharmaceutical Association Director Carmen A. DiCello's statements in your article, make it more difficult for us to maintain PACE's solvency. Mr. DiCello accused us of using "scare tactics" by threatening to raise the co-pay to gain older people's support for generics. But, the reason the co-pay has not been raised is that the Casey administration aggressively identified strategies that curtailed the costs on the business side of the equation rather than simply going after the pockets of the elderly. Mr. DiCello has been frequently quoted as a proponent for raising the co-pay. To the contrary, it is he and the pharmaceutical manufacturers who are trying to scare people by debasing generic drugs in the face of an unassailable record of generic drug safety.

In sum, special interest concerns, such as Mr. DiCello and his pharmaceutical manufacturing cohorts, are contributing significantly to the drain on our lottery reserves. I, in fact, liken it more to a raid.